16 November 2012 5:10 PM

The Millican Tendency

Professor Millican, having accurately summarised my position, and confirmed with me that his summary is accurate, has now posted his response to it. ( It appears on ‘The Quieter Millican’, a title that seems to have failed to amuse my readers, or even catch their attention. Think of Graham Greene, and of Saigon)

Here I reply to Professor Millican’s contribution ( as before) by interleaving my responses with the original and marking them ***. Even if you haven’t seen the original, its full operative text (shorn of some greetings) is here.

The Professor begins: ‘Here are the two principles that you said accurately reflected your position: 1. That assent to God is something so important that one has to decide "yea" or "nay", even in the absence of sufficient evidence to determine a reasoned answer. 2. That the evidence for and against God is so "subjective" and unmeasurable "in any independent, objective way" that no reasoned answer is possible.’

***Once again, I accept this as a summary of my position, though I am uncomfortable with the idea that the choice which then follows is unconnected with reason. It just doesn’t claim that reason *dictates* the choice. Reason leads us *to* the choice, and helps us to make it. But the decisive element in the choice is our preference. And the preference concerns the nature of the universe in which we live.

The Professor :’ So let's take quick look at each of them. First, 1 seems to suggest that the more important a question is, the more a decision is required even in the absence of evidence’.

***No. It doesn’t, so far as I know, apply in any other matter. It is unique and specific. The question of the existence of God is uniquely important, because of the implications of the answer we give to it to the way in which we subsequently live and die. I can think of no other question which begins to approach it in importance.

The Professor :’ I don't find this convincing; on the contrary, I would generally say that the more important a *theoretical* question is, the more it deserves deep investigation and suspension of judgement while evidence remains inadequate. I suspect you would respond to this that belief in God is an intensely important *practical* issue, and hence that a decision is required *to inform behaviour*, perhaps analogous to the situation in a burning building, when there is no time to weigh up carefully which escape route is best, but it's vital to make a choice one way or the other, and to do so urgently. It would be interesting to know if this would indeed be your response.’

***My response to this is ‘close, but not exactly right’. Even if we had eternity to decide the question on proof, we never could . It is not speed that is required, just a decision. If we wait for proof, we will never get it in this life. So we have to decide without proof. Even if we claim to be agnostic, we will live as if one answer or the other is true. But apart from the lack of time (unless you count an entire lifetime as analogous to the time allowed to escape from a burning building, which I would not), this is more or less my position. The question is too important to be ignored. Even if we claim to ignore it with our mouths, we shall act upon it through our hands. Also, you can investigate a subject deeply, and find no proof , only evidence (this difference between proof and evidence is important and will recur later) . My view does not suggest a shallow or thoughtless decision.

The professor : ‘Regarding 2, I do not understand why you would think that the evidence for and against God is any more "subjective" than evidence for many other things in life.’

***I am afraid that inability to understand seems to me to be a bit obtuse. I think he understands it, but rejects it. But because he does not wish to discuss the reasons for his rejection, he says he does not understand it. It seems quite clear. For me, for instance, every daybreak is evidence of the existence of God, as is the plumage of the Goldfinch and the profound yet simple ingenuity of the apple or the egg, or of the miraculous substance we call ‘water’ and take so much for granted. I could go on for pages. But I will leave it at that.

As an unbeliever, he quite correctly and reasonably regards my joy and wonder at these things as part of a circular self-affirming process, in which I see the unity, complexity and intricacy of the universe as powerful evidence of a benign Creator. But he is unwilling to say so. This is because, if he did say so, he would have in all fairness have to accept that his own explanations of these things are, likewise, part of a circular self-affirming process, in which he – bafflingly to me, though I accept that it is the case that he thinks this – regards the beauty, unity, complexity and intricacy of the universe as powerful evidence of a capricious cosmic train crash, without meaning or significance, which might just as easily never have happened. What he and all dogmatic unbelievers absolutely sheer away from is any step which would allow them to be modest enough to admit that their belief (like mine) is just that, a belief, not a demonstrable truth before which others must bow. As he is obviously very intelligent, this can only be explained (like most refusals to see the blindingly obvious) by his strong desire that this should be so. The cleverer people are, the better they are at concealing such things from themselves.

So we can never discuss this desire. It must not be acknowledged. It is the sacred mystery of the unbeliever. At every point in the road where we might turn towards this issue, the unbeliever erects a sturdy roadblock, insisting that reason dictates unbelief, and it is not therefore a choice; and he did not therefore choose it; so his motives for choosing it do not exist and cannot be discussed. We had this here before from a contributor who called himself Mr Bunker. He wasn’t half as clever as the professor, but his resistance to this subject was just the same.

The Professor continues :’Lots of things require judgements that cannot be precisely quantified, but in which nevertheless we recognise that some people have special expertise (usually gained over a long period of relevant experience). Indeed it is often precisely *because* the decisions are not reducible to objective measurement that we specially value expert judgement. Thus lack of precise "objective" measurement is no obstacle to the application of rational judgement; nor to the recognition that some answers are better warranted than others.

***I got lost half way through this. Where is ‘special expertise’ involved in the discussion of God’s existence? Great Scientists and Great Philosophers, equipped either with superior knowledge or superior skills at thought have over many centuries taken both sides in the quarrel. What sort of judgements are we talking about? In what way are they comparable to the choice between God and No God? Surely we revere experts because they *know* more than we do, and understand that if we *knew* as much as they did, we would share their judgements. But the currency of *knowledge*, essential among all experts from plumbers to brain surgeons, is not available in this discussion. There simply isn’t any knowledge. And we cannot even agree about what constitutes evidence.

The professor again :’A second point concerns the alleged lack of objective evidence in the God case. Suppose I visit a stately home which has two gardens, each tended by a different gardener. I know nothing about these gardeners, except that they are called Josh and Meph, and that Josh is a slightly better gardener than Meph. Because there is little to choose between them, it is not likely that I will be able to tell, just by looking at the gardens, which of them is tended by which of the gardeners. But now suppose I learn that Josh and Meph are fantastically different in quality: Josh is the best gardener in the entire world, while Meph is the worst. Now I *would* expect to be able to tell easily which of them tends which garden: Josh's supreme excellence as a gardener would surely leave clear traces in his own garden (and likewise for Meph's appallingness). Hence in so far as it is hard to tell how good a garden is, that very lack of manifest quality tells against the supposition that it is tended by a brilliant gardener (or by an appalling one). Now suppose that the gardener is supposed to be *infinitely* wonderful: it is surely incredible that he would produce a garden so unimpressive that its apparent quality was equally consistent with being created by a mediocre gardener.

***Once again I’m lost. We have only the one universe, not a first created by a benign God, and a second next door which happened by accident. As we lack omniscience, and are still floundering on the shores of knowledge and understanding of that universe, we would be wise to be modest about concluding whether any aspects of that universe are certainly good, bad, pointless etc. A brief history of medical practice tells us just how wrong we can be about things which appear obvious to us, but turn out to have meanings and purposes we have not yet guessed at. Note also the claim that 'evidence' rather than 'proof' is under discussion. We have evidence. But we do not have proof. Nor does he. We must avoid this confusion if we are to get any further.

The Professor resumes :’A third point concerns a tension between 1 and 2. In so far as you see the God question as urgent practically, this is apparently because you draw important practical consequences from the relevant beliefs (e.g. wanting to avoid hellfire).

***Personally I view it as matter of seeking, wherever possible, to discover the good, and to follow it. I am more interested in the purpose of such deterrents than in the deterrents themselves. But that’s just an obiter dictum.

The Professor again :’But if you are highly sceptical about our ability to draw empirical consequences from theism (and hence to discover predictions which could confirm or disconfirm the theory - the view you appear to espouse), you should apparently be equally sceptical about practical consequences.’

***Well, of course I am. I doubt everything. It’s in my nature (to me, a fact that’s more interesting than it is to him) . That is why I have to discipline myself into choosing and continuing, as far as is possible for fallen man, to live according to my choice. I don’t and can’t know. I am left with faith. That’s why it’s called the Christian Faith.

The Professor :’ Hence it is hard to combine your view that there is no rationally significant evidence for or against theism, with your view that it is vital to make a decision on the matter in line with what we apprehend to be theism's practical consequences.’

***Here we go again, slipping ‘evidence’ in as a synonym for proof. Oncer again, there is plenty of evidence, but no proof. This comes into every atheist argument at some point, just as King Charles’s Head would get into all Mr Dick’s writings in ‘David Copperfield’ . I have to discount every sentence in which this confusion is made, and the professor really ought to know better. He pleads shortage of sleep, so I’ll let him off, but really, he must try harder to avoid what is either a mistake or a sort of ‘find the lady’ switcheroo. There is a great cloud of rationally significant evidence for the existence of God, to which his mind (which has excluded the possibility of God from the start) is firmly shut, because he has himself shut it. There is not, however, absolute proof.

The Professor concludes :’I'm in need of sleep, so that will have to do for now. I suspect that we're heading towards Pascal's Wager!’

***He may head that way if he wishes. Pascal’s wager is for utter cynics, who have passed by beauty, poetry and glory and felt nothing. I have never offered it to anyone.

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@Mark Blades | 01 December 2012 at 05:41 PM

"You also attacked me in a similar way with your comment, ‘He [Noonan] is a fundamentalist creationist, as I now surmise you to be Mr Blades. Anyone who can say this, and endorse it, is completely off the rational rails’ "

I can understand why calling you a creationist fundamentalist would be insulting, but it wasn't intended as such. I was merely stating what I believed to be the case.

As to being off the rational rails, I have no qualms in repeating this, whether you see it as an insult or not. As you remarked to me, if it's true then it is not an insult. It is therefore not an insult.

I honestly can't be bothered responding to the rest of your comment. I can't discuss creationist nonsense and do my intellect a service. I have nothing to gain from such a discussion, but thank you for your time anyway.

‘Paul P’; you’ve written that I insulted you by impugning your integrity. I submit that my comments can only be considered insulting if they are not true. There seems to me to be more evidence of a deficit in the integrity department in your posting of the 27th November.

You state that, ‘"Contributor Noonan's arguments....etc etc" is not attacking the man. It is attacking his argument.’

You use ‘etc, etc’ in that quote and not your original actual words ‘nonsensical drivel’. This is to obscure the original sense of the sentence. I suspect this was deliberate. Your full comment was, ‘Contributor Noonan's arguments are nonsensical drivel’ In writing this, you clearly were not attacking Noonan’s arguments in the sense of presenting reasoned counter-arguments, which is the sense you now claim is what you mean. In the way you constructed the original comment, you are deliberately casting aspersions on his rationality and intelligence. To state that it wasn’t your intention to denigrate the man is something I find hard to believe.

You also attacked me in a similar way with your comment, ‘He [Noonan] is a fundamentalist creationist, as I now surmise you to be Mr Blades. Anyone who can say this, and endorse it, is completely off the rational rails’ That comment is just 'ad hominem' abuse, in that you identify me, by name and denigrate me [and probably Mr. Noonan also] as irrational for believing in creation by God. If you think I should understand these comments about my supposed lack of rationality in any other way than as an ‘ad hominem’ attack then I think I would take some convincing, as I think any other reasonable person would.

You further exacerbate this abuse by writing that I am ‘incapable of understanding English composition’. This charge is patently absurd and would more aptly apply to you if it were not for the fact that the defamatory comment about me just provided a link-in to your deliberate obfuscation in the sentence following.

‘Paul P’; According to a biblical definition, a fool is someone who doesn’t believe in God. Psalm 14 v 1. In this series of exchanges with you I have been guided by the principle as found in Proverbs 26 v 5;
‘Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.’

However, from now on, in order to keep myself from the temptation to respond in a wrong manner to your sophistry, I think I should be guided by the principle to be found in Proverbs 26 v 4 and take my leave.
‘Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.’

Paul Noonan
Thank you for your post of 27th. Nov at 4:03am.
In my post if 25th. Nov. at 6:09pm, I raised 4 issues about 1 Corinthians 15.3-9.
You have come back on one them, which was:
‘What Paul says that Peter, James and other people saw is hearsay, not evidence’.
You say that atheist historians like Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludeman and EP Sanders and Jewish historians like Gush Vermes accept that some people really did see the risen Jesus. Are you sure? But if they really accept that, they would be Christians. But they are not. How come?
Anyway, while the New Testament says that that various people saw the risen Jesus, no one in it claims that he saw him with his own eyes heard him with his own ears or touched him with his own hands. Doesn’t this make you wonder?
I raised 3 other issues.
1 Why no mention of Mary Magdalene? She was the only person in the garden that morning according to all four gospels. Did none tell him about her?
2. Why does Paul say that Jesus appeared to the 12? During the 40 days, they were 11, not 12. Judas was dead and Matthias was not yet an apostle. Did no one tell him?
3. Did no one tell Paul that they has seen, heard and touched a flesh and flood person, and had not just seen flashing lights and heard a voice coming out of nowhere?
What do you think?

Is this the same Vilenkin who proposed the eternal inflation model? The Eternal Inflation model supposes an infinite multiverse. Why doesn't the eternal inflation/multiverse model ever appear on the "creationist science" websites, websites which seem to have exclusive rights to the so-called Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem'?

Mr Noonan, sir, you are hacking away at a creationist agenda with God as a premise, tossing in as necessary any passing cosmological model you think fits the bill. Cosmology science is replete with plausible 'models' of the universe, all of them hypotheses, all of them thus far untestable. Notice the word "untestable", a word preventing any science from becoming a truth, and a concept unrecognised in religion.

"On this comments page, or any containing the name 'Millican' in the title, I challenge you to direct me to anything you consider to be an example of an insult from someone who is clearly 'religious'."

From you on the 26 November 2012 at 11:27 AM ....

"....or even integrity to refute the arguments he presents". Impugning my integrity is an insult.

"In contrast, you, Paul P, have been gratuitously insulting on a number of occasions, without apology, by writing dismissive sentences such as' I can't believe I'm having this ridiculous conversation.' or 'Look up 'Russell's teapot'. And then go away' or especially, ' ‘Contributor Noonan's arguments are nonsensical drivel…. Anyone who can say this, and endorse it, is completely off the rational rails’"

Okay, so now I will be insulting; you are incapable of understanding composition in the English language. I nowhere attack the man (argumentum ad hominem), I attack the argument. "Contributor Noonan's arguments....etc etc" is not attacking the man. It is attacking his argument.

To wit....

Contributor Noonan is a creationist fundamentalist. His argumentation is nonsensical. It is peppered with crypto-scientific allusion in so far as it appears to support the creationist case. I intend to waste no more of my time with it. I know from experience that the discussion will be going all round the houses ad infinitum. The goalposts will move around the field so many times it will leave me dizzy.

God as an hypothesis is valid. God as a premise is invalid. God as an hypothesis I am prepared to discuss. God as a premise I will not discuss. I will simply dismiss it. Is that clear enough for you?

I wasn't being 'insulting' in the sense of my comments being gratuitous but rather I posited my reasons for believing that your patent refusal to address Mr. Noonan's arguments was because you lacked knowledge or ability or integrity. They were challenging words to which you responded by listing your educational background and claiming that this gave you qualification to be able to reject religious dogma.

This claim to be 'well qualified' to address the arguments [besides being rather a ridiculous assertion] is not a refutation of the charge of your being without knowledge or ability unless you can demonstrate those qualities in the form of an address to the religious arguments, or dogmas, in question which is something, so far, you have refused to do, and especially so in the case of Paul Noonan's recent well-presented arguments.

As to your claim that the 'religious' always resort to insults, this is also false. On this comments page, or any containing the name 'Millican' in the title, I challenge you to direct me to anything you consider to be an example of an insult from someone who is clearly 'religious'. I don't think you will be able to. On this page alone, you can point to my own previous comment where I wrote on 20 November 2012 at 11:28 AM 'However, your ego doesn't seem to be comparably feeble ' as being insulting and where Paul Noonan also wrote on the 19th that, 'You don't appear to know anything about these arguments.' However, whilst my remark could be said to be insulting I don’t think that Mr.Noonan's was especially so and, beside all that, both of us apologised for our respective comments in subsequent posts.

In contrast, you, Paul P, have been gratuitously insulting on a number of occasions, without apology, by writing dismissive sentences such as' I can't believe I'm having this ridiculous conversation.' or 'Look up 'Russell's teapot'. And then go away' or especially, ' ‘Contributor Noonan's arguments are nonsensical drivel…. Anyone who can say this, and endorse it, is completely off the rational rails’
Any apology you do offer is not a 'real' apology as when you write, ‘Apologies for my weary disaffection’

These kinds of comments are gratuitously insulting and designed to be so. They are dismissive and so serve two purposes: First, they enable you to decline to address valid points. Second, they are meant to cast aspersions on the intelligence of the believer. As such, I say again, I can infer from this kind of behaviour that you lack the knowledge or ability or integrity to address the rationality of your own position as well as lacking the ability, knowledge or integrity to refute the arguments of the opposition.

The websites you mention haven't "debunked" anything (see Alex Villenkin's recent 2012 lecture "Why Cosmologists Can't Avoid A Creation Event"). Villenkin explains that contracting models of the Universe can't avoid this need for an absolute cosmic beginning, because such models couldn't have produced a stable Universe or a single singularity.

Curtis; the post-mortem sightings of Jesus by the then-living disciples Paul names, after he met the Galatians, are affirmed as historical facts by almost all modern historians, (including atheist historians like Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludeman and EP Sanders and Jewish historians like Gush Vermes), due to the multiple, early attestation and the quoting of early oral traditions attesting to them in 1st Corinthians and in Mark.

"1. Loving and caring personal Gods do not exist 2. angels do not exist. 3. miracles do not happen."

The above statements can be said broadly to encapsualate my position on this. They are rational responses to received, unevidenced religious dogma.

"......no doubt, because you don't have the knowledge, or ability or even integrity to refute the arguments he presents."

Casting aside the insults - the religious can't seem to present a case without them - I was brought up a Catholic and educated by a Catholic teaching brotherhood at an Independent school. I am well qualified to know what I am talking about.

Contributor Noonan's arguments are nonsensical drivel. He is a fundamentalist creationist, as I now surmise you to be Mr Blades. Anyone who can say this, and endorse it, is completely off the rational rails....

"In asserting that God is "imaginary, you've now increased the burden of proof on your shoulders."

Paul P, the topic under discussion is not my dogmatic assertions but your own. Actually, you're right in saying the discussion has ended because you've already stated your dogmas in a reply to Paul Noonan. In the form of a 'credal' statement of unbelief, these dogmas are: 1. Loving and caring personal Gods do not exist 2. angels do not exist. 3. miracles do not happen.

You arrived at these conclusions not through your much vaunted 'bottom up' approach to investigation but to your 'faith' that these things are so. You refuse to engage with Paul Noonan properly and dismiss his arguments with an entirely self-created air of 'weariness', created by you, no doubt, because you don't have the knowledge, or ability or even integrity to refute the arguments he presents. In that way, your words [ I can't even call them 'arguments'] rather resemble the actions of a squid, which, sensing danger, pushes out its ink-like cloud in order to confuse and disappear rather than confront.

I will willingly step aside now and leave you to properly address Paul Noonans arguments, if you can.

" I don't need verification from contemporary examples of people coming back from the dead in order to validate my faith that Christ was resurrected."

That's fine. We may end it there. If you want to believe through faith that Christ was resurrected from the dead then believe it. Why are you participating in discussion?

"Anyway, what I'm interested in is your dogmatic assertion that it couldn't have happened because it's 'biologically impossible.'"

"Dogmatic assertion". That's interesting. It's actually a Christian dogmatic assertion that it did. It's part of the Creed. For my part you answer your own question. It couldn't have happened because it is biologically impossible. That answers it. How else could it have happened. A miracle?

Concise OED definition of 'miracle'....

"Marvellous event due to some supposed supernatural agency."

There is nothing more to say on this. You believe a marvellous event occurred and it was due to a supernatural agency. I contend that no such marvellous event happened, much less that a supernatural agency was not involved. A severely battererd man, no doubt with acute blood loss together with a speared heart, declared dead at the scene by Romans widely experienced in the business of tormented death, and having laid in this condition in a tomb for three days, did not marvellously rise from the dead and just wander off in perfect health, as also did all the saints from graves on the Mount of Olives, according to Matthew. They appeared in town and "made themselves known". I can't believe I'm having this ridiculous conversation.

"Aren't you just engaging in sophistry, Paul, with all your arguments about someone being 'technically dead' or in a 'process of death'?"

No. You know perfectly well what I mean. I'm not going into reams of composition in order to correct willful misunderstandings. I recommend a correspondence with contributor Noonan. You and he are singing from the same hymn book.

Apologies for my weary disaffection, but I've had these meaningless discussions with fundamentalists a billion times. They go nowhere recognisable as even common sense let alone rational truth. You have a great day anyway.

Ah yes, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem. A quick internet peruse shows how quick creationists were to latch on to this when they saw, or at least thought, it suited them, as they did the Big Bang itself many years ago. Word-count does not permit me to go into the debunking of its value to creationism, which in any case I have no intention of wasting my time with. There are plenty of authoratitiive websites where one will find that to one's satisfaction.

As I said in my previous post, you are a fundamentalist creationist. There is no worthwhile discussion on offer here. You will simply keep streaming out crypto-scientific casuistry as it suits your position. "Cosmology disproves......et al". Just streaming nonsense. Cosmology "disproves' nothing which can be of interest to creationists.

"In asserting that God is "imaginary, you've now increased the burden of proof on your shoulders."

Paul Noonan |
Thank you for your post of 23 rd. Nov. at 6:50pm.
You write in paragraph 8 ‘
On the resurrection, you're confused; we have very strong evidence for the facts supporting the resurrection hypotheses ….’
Or do we?
Take 1 Corinthians 15.3-9 for example. There 3 snags.
1. What Paul says that Peter, James and other people saw is hearsay, not evidence.
2.1 Why no mention of Mary Magdalene? She was the only person in the garden that morning according to all four gospels.
2.2. Why does Paul say that Jesus appeared to the 12? During the 40 days, they were 11, not 12. Judas was dead and Matthias was not yet an apostle.
3. Yes, Paul says that he met Jesus himself. But when? Probably not before the ascension. Jesus ascends at Acts 1.9. We do not meet Saul till Acts 8.1.
I suppose he is thinking of what happened on the Road to Damascus, Acts 9.1-9.
But what did happen? Saul saw flashing lights and heard a voice coming out of nowhere. He did not meet a flesh and blood Jesus.
Yet, if the disciples really did meet the risen Jesus, they met a flesh and blood person. For example, Luke 24.36-43 describes someone whom they can touch and who eats, not flashing lights and a disembodied voice.
How much does Paul really know?

Having been soundly defeated on the facts (you even claimed "matter and energy always existed" when modern cosmology disproves this, see the 2003 Borde-Guth-Villenkin theorem) you abandon any attempt rational argument.

You even asserted that objective morality is just a "construct", a useful delusion with no purpose other than to aid social cohesion within the species. Which means you have just confessed, on a public forum, (you're relatives might even be reading this!) that you think the Holocaust wasn't really morally wrong, and those who think it was, are suffering an evolution-induced delusion.

I do wish atheists would try thinking before they open their mouths, especially in public.

These ideas aren't just word-games, they are beliefs with real consequences.

If you really think objective morals don't exist (and we can't prove they do, any more than we can prove the external world is real, and not a construct of our imagination) then what you are actually saying is that child rape, murder and genocide are not genuinely evil acts deserving of punishment, they are just offences against a meaningless "herd taboo" which differs from species to species, and has no meaning other than to aid the propagation of DNA.

Think about what you are saying, before you speak!

In asserting that God is "imaginary, you've now increased the burden of proof on your shoulders;you now need to give me, not just an argument (which you haven't achieved so far) but absolute proof that God does not exist, to justify that claim.

Otherwise you've just made a baseless irrational statement of faith and, in so doing, revealed who the real "fundamentalist" is, in this discussion.

Since you've demonstrated you have no evidence for you're claim, and that it is an article of faith (the belief that God is "imaginary" and thus non-existent, has never been proved by anybody) I'd be interested, like Mr Hitchens, in hearing the reason for you;re faith.

You haven;t got any evidence for it, so why don't you open up to us on the real reason for you're faith in a purposeless, amoral, meaningless Universe?

Paul P, I'm not 'grasping at straws' as you state. I don't need verification from contemporary examples of people coming back from the dead in order to validate my faith that Christ was resurrected. Anyway, what I'm interested in is your dogmatic assertion that it couldn't have happened because it's 'biologically impossible.'

I've cited a case where a woman came back to life after being declared dead and you assert, dogmatically, that she couldn't have been actually dead. Are you medically trained? The doctor involved said her coming back to life was a 'miracle' and, that by inference, means it was something that he couldn't explain with his scientific knowledge. Yet you contradict his trained medical opinion. Where is your evidence for your contradiction?

You've poured scorn on believers, in other posts, for their 'top down' approach to arriving at their conclusions about God, or the resurrection, and yet you have settled on your conclusion in the particular case I cited in exactly the same 'top down' way based on your own dogmatic assertion that coming back to life from death is 'biologically impossible.'

Aren't you just engaging in sophistry, Paul, with all your arguments about someone being 'technically dead' or in a 'process of death'?

"The Resurrection of Jesus is just another resurrection myth, of which the times were replete."

If you knew anything about the subject (most people don't know anything about it either, so don't feel alone) you'd know that it's precisely because a ressurected Messiah was NOT part of the mythology of Jewish society, and ran completely contrary to the Jewish belief systems of the disciples, that this event could not have been a "myth".

The very idea of a dying Messia, much less a rising one, was complete blasphemy to the extent that belief in it, led to the ostracisation, torture and murder of the very earliest disciples by the Jewish Sanhedrin.

It can't be judged in the context of older ressurrection myths but in the context of the specific culture in which the disciples emanated from.

That's why the idea of the resurrection as "myth" has been abandoned by modern historians of the New Testament. It's false.

Let's keep this briefer. You are a creationist fundamentalist advancing pseudo-scientific casuistry in an attempt to give the utterly imaginative theist case a patina of rational respectability.

Briefer still: Loving and caring personal Gods do not exist, nor do angels and miracles. They exist over the rainbow of your imagination, the place where any dream you care to summon will come true, exactly as you wished it.

Paul P, embarassingly, writes
"It is this that is a biological impossibility"

Erm, it's not an "impossibility" unless you assume God doesn't exist. Since you have absolute no way of proving that contention (and haven't even offered anything bordering on an argument to support it) then you can't judge miracles to be improbable.

And, again, Hume's presumption against miracles was false, (as is known by all modern probability theorists) because he made this presumption long before the probability calculus was invented.

This calculus shows that it's absurd to judge the inherent improbability of an event, without first factoring in the background information. You can't judge an explanation to be improbable, in advance, without first asking what the probability is that you would have all the background evidence you have, if that was not the explanation.

To give an example of the ridiculousness of his theory; if the world's media simultaneously reported that aliens had landed in Windsor Palace, Hume's theory would require you to reject the evidence that this had happened (even if it was filmed by the world media), on the grounds that the improbability of aliens landing in Windsor Palace means that any other explanation, no matter how ridiculous, is more probable than the one reported by the media.

Anyone can see the problem here; you can't judge the improbability of an explanation, such as aliens landing, without first judging the probability that we would have all the background evidence we have (e.g the international news media reporting the event) if that was NOT the explanation.

You have to consider the probability that we would have an empty tomb, multiple independent post-mortem sightings of Jesus AND the inexplicable sudden rise of a belief among many of his disciples in a resurrection event that contradicted their entire Jewish belief system (and which exposed them to imprisonment, torture and execution) if a genuine resurrection was not the explanation.

The stolen body theory or the hallucination hypotheses, all fail these tests, they don't explain the multiple, independent sightings, the empty tomb AND the disciples sudden, inexplicable belief in an event which was out of tune with their entire belief system,a belief which they had every cultural predisposition to the contrary, and which placed them under threat of death.

" Do you stand by your assertion, in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary, that 'No one rose from the dead. It is a scientific impossibility?'"

Yes. The woman you cite was, as I said in my post, 'technically dead' in the modern idiom. But she wasn't dead. Modern determinations of death - the ceasing of this function and that function, flatlines on monitors, brain scans and what have you, have redefined death as a process. The process of becoming dead.. I granted the possibility that, the body being a machine, it could 'spring back to life' under phenomenal circumstances. It's a matter for amazement, to be sure, but also perfectly explainable biologically. True death, shall we say, had not occurred in the cases you cite. Grasping at this straw by the believer is akin to grasping at the creationist straw upon first hearing about the cosmological Big Bang.

If one is to accept the Gospel narrative, Jesus had a spear thrust through his heart. I'm pretty confident that, in this circumstance in the 1st century AD and obviously in the absence of a life-support machine, there would be no 'springing back to life', not within 10 seconds let alone three days. The guy was thereafter flatlining to be positively sure.

"If he wasn't actually dead, as you state may have been the case, then you either doubt the veracity of the report or you must doubt the ability of the Roman soldiers [and others] to know if a person is dead or not. Which is it?"

I have every confidence in the Roman soldiers being able to tell a dead man from a living one. Jesus was dead. There was no rising from that very dead dead.

Many theories have been posited over the years to explain the Resurrection in terms of what could reasonably have happened if Jesus' body had genuinely disappeared from the tomb. It could have been stolen is the obvious explanation, and it might have been. The guards were reportedly asleep and saw nothing.

Then there are the 'plot' theories, most notably that of Hugh Schonfield in 'The Passover Plot'. There are many others from Simon actually being the man crucified to the vinegar being a soporific drug, and so forth and so on.

The Resurrection of Jesus is just another resurrection myth, of which the times were replete. After all, all those resident dead saints in the graves on the Mount of Olives also rose from the dead at the Resurrection. Matthew 27.52 & 53...

52: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53: And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Not just literary licence, then. The resurrected saints made themselves known about town. What happened to them?

Paul P,
I don't see a distinction between being 'pronounced dead' and 'being dead', either in Christ's 'case' or in the case of the report in the Daily Telegraph.

In the case of the woman in the Daily Telegraph article, she was pronounced dead by doctors because she was dead, as the most sophisticated methods of ascertaining death known to modern science had indicated. Then, spontaneously, she came back to life.

With Christ, he was pronounced dead because he was dead. Roman soldiers, and others, verified this state and He was buried. If he wasn't actually dead, as you state may have been the case, then you either doubt the veracity of the report or you must doubt the ability of the Roman soldiers [and others] to know if a person is dead or not. Which is it?

With Christ's death, you write that He was more likely to have actually been dead due to the piercing of His heart and the time spent in the tomb. Is this a medically sanctioned standard test for determining death?

Furthermore, in the case of the report in the Telegraph, 26th May 2008, the patient was pronounced dead because ' there was no pulse, blood pressure or measurable brain activity' This conclusion was reached after 17 hours of observation on a life support machine. After she was taken off the machine the hospital reported that 'her heart re-started'. In this particular case, I suggest to you, Paul, that the woman was pronounced dead because she was dead and that she came back to life. Do you stand by your assertion, in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary, that 'No one rose from the dead. It is a scientific impossibility?'

The Borde-Guth-Villenkin theorem shows nothing is past-eternal-including matter and energy-if this contradicts the law of thermodynamics, then this law needs to be re-addressed in light of modern cosmology.

When we say the Universe came from "nothing" we mean it was without material cause, therefore it must have an efficient cause (i.e a creator) or no cause. Which is more plausible?

On the multiverse; this is deductive logic-there are three "explanations" of the fine-tuning of the Universe for life; chance (i.e multiverse), necessity or design.

Since it wasn't necessity, (and can't plausibly be chance due to the problems with the multiverse hypotheses) that leaves design as the most plausible explanation.

This is even worse when you consider the multiverse itself requires fine-tuning for 11 dimensions!

To understand the properties of this designer, we then need the ontological, cosmological and moral arguments.

Contingent beings require a cause, and since everything is contingent (including the Universe itself) it all requires a cause, since there is no reason ANYTHING should exist, rather than nothing, if there's no ultimate cause.

On the resurrection, you're confused; we have very strong evidence for the facts supporting the resurrection hypotheses (many living eyewitnesses are quoted in Paul's letters to the Corinthians and Mark's gospel) which is why even great atheist historians like Bart Ehrman and Gerd Ludeman affirm that Jesus's empty tomb and post-mortem appearances are historical facts.

The only debate is over the best explanation of these facts; and you're false claim that miracles are "impossible" makes two false presumptions; first, that God doesn't exist (which you can't prove, and the other arguments weigh against) and Hume's false presumption against miracles. The probability calculus (which wasn't invented in Hume's time) shows you can't judge the inherent improbability of any explanation such as, say, a resurrection, without first judging the probability that we would have all the evidence we have (e.g post-mortem sightings of Jesus, empty tomb etc) if that was not the explanation.

On objective morality; in an evolutionary sense, rape and murder aren;t "wrong" they just happen to be bad for social cohesion within this particular species,( but not others), so we've evolved a meaningless "herd taboo", against them, so the rapist has done nothing more serious than flout the fashion of the herd, like someone who wears the wrong colour trainers.

If you think the Holocaust was evil (even if the Nazis believed it was good) then you agree objective morality exists, and thus necessitates a transcendent source.

If the Universe wasn't fundamentally rational and intelligible (and thus designed) this would refute science itself. So quantum theory would be refuting itself in affirming this!

Since every scientific theory is false and only has functional value, not truth value, if it's not based on comprehension of an objective reality, discernible to reason.

I am aware of these things but do not consider that I am bound by them. Association with any religious group or should be voluntary.

I have written to the organisation to seek clarification over certain doctrine I believe may be erroneous and have had some replies. I realise that this may put me on a collision course for disfellowshipping or having to take my leave as loyalty to Christ is always before any group of men.

" If 'Paul P' would google the phrase,'back to life from being dead' he would see page after page of documented reports of people coming back to life after being pronounced 'dead'."

There is quite a difference between being pronounced dead and being dead. Jesus was supposedly resurrected from the dead and not resurrected from the pronouncement of being dead. Jesus was reportedly pronounced dead by a Roman soldier, and in fact assuredly was having had his heart punctured by a spear. So Jesus was dead. So he didn't rise from the dead. Rising from pronouncements of death is of course possible, as reports have attested. But no such reports to my knowledge attest to risings following three days in a tomb with a severely punctured heart.

To the extent that a human body is a machine it no doubt can be stimulated back into action under certain circumstances. You could then say the body was technically dead and then came alive again for some reason. If you want to say that this happened in the case of Jesus then I would accept this as a theoretical possibility. Perhaps the Roman soldier missed with his spear. Perhaps there had in fact been a 'Passover Plot' as Hugh Schonfield argues. Perhaps the wine was a soporific drug, who knows.

The point is: if Jesus rose from a death-like state, a mis-pronouncement, or a body re-activation, it was not a miracle, but a perfectly explainable natural process. If it was a miracle then Jesus was as dead as dead can be beforehand. It is this that is a biological impossibility.

I should have read your final paragraph before rushing into print. So yes, I have replied exactly as you expected. Was any other reply possible? You obviously did not expect me to say, 'Well then, the Resurrection must be true'.

Steven Armstrong, as I wrote before, I'm not going to engage with you on this blog in a Scripture verse 'tit-for-tat'. However, I'm interested in something you wrote on the 20th November at 04:07 PM. I'll quote it in full.

'I have been baptised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses and am currently affilliated to that group, but I do not for a minute imagine that 'they' have the absolute Truth and that all their doctrine is correct.'

I wonder how you reconcile that belief with a Watchtower statement of September 15,1989 p. 23 where your leadership conveys the idea that,

'...a spirit of independent thinking does not prevail in God’s organization, and we have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us.'

Are you also aware of the fact that, in your belief that JWs do not possess all truth, that you are in direct opposition to your own 'divinely appointed' Governing Body? Your own leadership confirms this view in the edition of the Watchtower dated December 1, 1981 p.27

'Jehovah God has also provided his visible organization, his "faithful and discreet slave," made up of spirit-anointed ones... Unless we are in touch with this channel of communication that God is using, we will not progress along the road to life, no matter how much Bible reading we do.'

I wonder, Mr. Armstrong, about which JW doctrines you don't think are correct and whether or not you've communicated with your local leadership and/or the international governing body regarding your differing views?

Paul P, 22 November 2012 at 12:36 AM
'There is no historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection. No one rose from the dead. It is a biological impossibility. Gospel narratives do not constitute evidence.'

I'm always amazed that atheists can make their dogmatic 'faith' statements without a trace of irony. If 'Paul P' would google the phrase,'back to life from being dead' he would see page after page of documented reports of people coming back to life after being pronounced 'dead'. There is a particularly interesting report in the Daily Telegraph of 26th May 2008.

Now, I'm sure 'Paul P' will reply that in all of these cases the people weren't 'really' dead and that there must be a biological explanation for these kinds of things. Yet medical science, in many of those examples, doesn't have any explanation and so any belief that medical science will be able to explain why such things happen in a future time must, without clear evidence, constitute a 'belief' on his part and is therefore a matter of 'faith'. Or perhaps he will discount the reports and say they are unreliable?

Well, I recognise Jesus Christ as being divine, being a god, even a Mighty God according to Isaiah 9:6. The firstborn of all creation, the one with a name above every other name, who must be honoured to the glory of God the Father.

I don't worship Jesus as Jesus Christ, the Son of God; himself said that only the Father, the Lord God, Jehovah, must be worshipped. - Matthew 4:9

Jesus Christ himself acknowledged that the Father is greater than he, and that at the Apostle Paul was inspired to write:

(1 Corinthians 15:20-28) . . . However, now Christ has been raised up from the dead... Next, the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father... For [God] “subjected all things under his feet.” But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.

If Jesus Christ stated the Law, that only the Father should be worshipped, this means that any scripture suggesting Jesus received worship must be something else, i.e. obeisance - the type of honour and respect one would show a royal dignitary for example.

Thus, I do not subscribe to any 'Heresy' - I'm just doing as Jesus Christ commanded.

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